Poetry by Lizzie Ballagher – internal and external landscapes

Menu

Monthly Archives: July 2016

Throughout the 1990s (and to a lesser extent for a further decade) I worked with children who were on the autistic spectrum. In this poem, first published in 1994 by the National Autistic Society, (NAS), I imagine being parent to such a child – all too often quite misunderstood: a child who experiences information overload in almost every waking moment; a child who sees and responds to the world differently from his or her peers; a child, in fact, who is “differently abled”.

Just recently I’ve received the happy news that Poetry Space’sSummer Showcase will be featuring the poem shown below. Here, after a walk through currant fields just last summer, I recall the happy experience of growing up on a blackcurrant farm in Norfolk.